Cleaning up...

Well – as I suspected there was a party lurking about and it did pop out and we had a blast! I managed to sneak off for a nap with the baby under the guise that she needed some quiet time to nurse. However – while she had a feast for an hour, I did not get that much coveted nap. The 2 year old noticed, followed up behind us and stood there bellowing and knocking on the door.

Once I gave up on the idea, and passed a very full baby off to another set of arms, I caught up my wallet, begged the car keys of my 19 yr old son and headed off for the local grocery store. Remembering that the handle on my stove had finally fallen off, I immediately asked hopefully at the bakery counter if they had a sheet cake in the back - minus all decorative icing. “No ma’am, we sure don’t.”

Sigh. 'Oh well,' I thought,'back to plan A, we bake cupcakes and decorate those. I will just have to manage the oven door for Anna.'
She is our current cake baker. Of course, when I got home I realized I had forgotten the decorations for the cake and the cocoa for the icing.

While the cupcakes were issuing lovely odors into the kitchen, I quickly slapped 15 huge burgers together, and unwrapped the 12 “dogs”. The others happily tore open bags of chips and quickly dumped them into metal bowls, and we all carried the feast out to the porch where the electric grills were plugged in and waiting for us. Given our gas barbeque is in need of maintenance and, as such, on holidays, this was our only option. Call me crazy, but I find food cooked outdoors tastes so much better – even if it is only on an electric frying pan.

I plopped a burger onto one of the grills in my outdoor kitchen and awaited the pleasant zizzle… Nothing, not even a zzzzz. I looked the hot dogs, cold and wet on their grill… They too were silent. Hmmm. I checked the plugs and wiped the sweat from my brow wondering why I was doing this when I could be using these same cooking utensils in my wonderfully cool kitchen. ‘Because,’ I grumbled to myself, ‘I want a BARBEQUE and barbeques are done outside in the heat and the flies’. So I gritted my teeth and stomped into the garage to check the fuse box. Everything looked good except for one fuse…. # 30. Yup – plug in on porch and downstairs bathroom lights…. Flipped it back and we were in business. Until I heard a strangled cry from my husband.
“Christi – the cat is eating the burgers…”

Shoot! I dashed back to the porch, where said culprit was long gone, and meticulously examined the meat. No bite marks that I could see, no fur. Whatever had my husband been talking about? Likely she did not more than sniff them, and at 4.19 a pound I was not about to waste a scrap of meat!

Soon there was a lovely sizzle and then we were all happily chowing down on burgers, chips and dogs! A traditional July 4th meal if there ever was one. We even had a surprise guest join us. A real party now, guest and all. And there were still the cupcakes to go, which I suspected was about all that was going to end up in Emma’s tummy since she was too busy chasing the flies and commanding them to "tay off, tupid fies" and yelling at them that "Dat's mine" to actually eat any of the food she was defending!

Finally we were all satisfied and I sat rocking Elsa on the porch enjoying a soft breeze while the kids raced around chasing each other and generally just having fun. Emma suddenly announced “I wanna baf.”
"Later hunny, everyone’s busy, we can’t watch you in the tub right now."
“I wanna baf.... Peeeeease!?”

I spied the old metal tub we had brought with us from the old house, and had a brilliant idea….